GAME DAY: Ottawa @ New Jersey, 7:00PM, Thursday, December 8, 2011

We're just lucky we got a point. Spezza playing like crap, Karlsson playing like crap, Auld not getting it done, Z.Smith's line broken up and not looking as good, Gonchar out which compounds the Kuba injury as well, Rundblad showing some flashes, but not ready...

Lucky to get the point. It was right around the time Parise said, I got this, that I thought we were dead in regulation. Spezza could learn some things from him.

SpezDispenser wrote:We're just lucky we got a point. Spezza playing like crap, Karlsson playing like crap, Auld not getting it done, Z.Smith's line broken up and not looking as good, Gonchar out which compounds the Kuba injury as well, Rundblad showing some flashes, but not ready...

Lucky to get the point. It was right around the time Parise said, I got this, that I thought we were dead in regulation. Spezza could learn some things from him.

Or the Devils were just free to start attacking once Fraudeur was yanked and they no longer needed to play the "Make Fraudeur look good" system that's been in place for nearly 20 years.

SpezDispenser wrote:Lucky to get the point. It was right around the time Parise said, I got this, that I thought we were dead in regulation. Spezza could learn some things from him.

Yeah, this is SO why we're going to get Parise in the off-season. He's the cure to what ails #19.

On the Winchester front: he, Foligno, Kuba, Gonchar…these are guys Sens fans have traded 37,000 times over. It's cool how they are now big reasons why we are remaining competitive. Spezza also fits into this mold, although we're waiting for his pendulum to swing back to "reason for success" from "successful despite".

Anyway, it's never a dull game with the Sens these days!

tim1_2 wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:Lucky to get the point. It was right around the time Parise said, I got this, that I thought we were dead in regulation. Spezza could learn some things from him.

Yeah, this is SO why we're going to get Parise in the off-season. He's the cure to what ails #19.

On the Winchester front: he, Foligno, Kuba, Gonchar…these are guys Sens fans have traded 37,000 times over. It's cool how they are now big reasons why we are remaining competitive. Spezza also fits into this mold, although we're waiting for his pendulum to swing back to "reason for success" from "successful despite".

Anyway, it's never a dull game with the Sens these days!

Yeah, he's Cussing awesome. I'm not as down on Spezza as some other people, but I see the issues he's having as issues that have plagued him for quite some time. He's just not hard to play against sometimes. Sometimes he's impossible to play against, when he uses his speed, size and vision, other times he doesn't move his feet and makes ridiculously low % plays that lead to issues.

I hope he gets it together - soon.

As for Foligno, he should be patted on the back in a big, big way. It appears as if he gets it, instead of driving the outside lane, then trying a low % wrap around, now he's cutting to the net and daring defenders to move him. It's refreshing and very important to our success.

Foligno is playing like a guy that has been in the NHL for 4 seasons now. He's matured, he understands, he knows what he has to do. He's a top 6 forward. Doesn't happen over night.

NEELY wrote:Foligno is playing like a guy that has been in the NHL for 4 seasons now. He's matured, he understands, he knows what he has to do. He's a top 6 forward. Doesn't happen over night.

Maybe, but it didn't look like he was gonna put it all together for a while, nice to see.

He was showing flashes the whole time. Putting it all together takes a lot longer then a season or two, especially for a guy who played as a teen.

shabbs wrote:One shortie in a game is deflating... two in a game is killer. They just didn't play the full 60+ mins and Jersey took advantage of the momentum shift to take the game. Dung happens, time to move on. Next game.

How different would the game have been if Winchester did not hit the post with his shorthand shot..

Team is still re-building and will be prone to mistakes. They learn by making the mistakes.

To be where they are in the standings right now -- being in a first year of a re-build -- to me is great. No one expected this from them... so it's all a plus.

They have a pretty tough schedule in Dec playing a lot of elite teams... this will probably be the telling month.

Just about ready to take back any Kudos given to Dave Cameron early in the season for his work on the Powerplay.

Da lil Guy wrote:Just about ready to take back any Kudos given to Dave Cameron early in the season for his work on the Powerplay.

I'm not ready to blame the guy for all the missed shots on goal. Foligno's goal was the perfect example to contrast a whole lot of fancy passes and missed nets with his hard drive to the net with a bunch of bodies in the crease for positive results.

NEELY wrote:Foligno is playing like a guy that has been in the NHL for 4 seasons now. He's matured, he understands, he knows what he has to do. He's a top 6 forward. Doesn't happen over night.

MacLean has him going to the net finally. Foligno would just endless cycle before and rarely do anything else.

Hoags wrote:

NEELY wrote:Foligno is playing like a guy that has been in the NHL for 4 seasons now. He's matured, he understands, he knows what he has to do. He's a top 6 forward. Doesn't happen over night.

MacLean has him going to the net finally. Foligno would just endless cycle before and rarely do anything else.

Yeah exactly.

SpezDispenser wrote:
Yeah exactly.

Isn't the coaching staff awesome this year ? I think every player is performing as expected or better. Butler and Filatov are the only duds so far but there might not be a coach in existence who can get them going.

I'm most impressed with how he handled Kuba and Gonchar. They started out brutal in the first few games and MacLean got them on the right track.

LeKid wrote:Anderson has bailed Spezza out for a dozen times in the last few games, unfortunately for N19 he wasn't there last night.
Say all you want about his linemates, but the number of stupid plays he makes on a nightly basis is amazingly disgusting.
Thank god we're not having cap issues so I don't care what he's making. Wonder what MElnyk is thinking watching those games.

Maybe we should have taken Buffalo's (rumored) offer of Roy and Adam for Spezza ?